Finding an NHS dentist can be like pulling teeth

People who cannot get an NHS dentist are pulling their teeth out with pliers and using Superglue to put caps back.

So declared Mike Penning, from the Tory front bench, in a bid to destroy the "complacent" picture of dentistry painted by Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary.

Let us leave the glue on one side, or beneath whatever caps it may be holding in place: what worried some of us was the thought of the pliers.

Mr Penning is not one of those politicians who can be dismissed for having no knowledge of the outside world: on an official Tory website we are reminded that he "joined the Army as a boy soldier" and served in the Grenadier Guards, after which he was "a full-time fireman in Essex for many years".

But after Mr Johnson had said there has been a 20 per cent increase in the number of dentists since 1997, Sir Paul intervened to say that the real question is how many of those dentists will accept NHS patients.

For according to Sir Paul, many dentists have moved out of the health service since the new contract was brought in, especially the "highly experienced professionals".

Mr Johnson conceded there was "an initial drop", but said young dentists are more enthusiastic about the contract "than some of the older dentists": a blow the Health Secretary softened by saying that Sir Paul, who is 61, "looks to me like one of the younger crop".

This was not the only dental problem to arise at health questions.

Kerry McCarthy (Lab, Bristol East) drew attention to the danger of children swallowing toothpaste and instanced a seven-year-old whose teeth had been severely damaged by this habit.

Mr Johnson agreed that harm had been caused "by children actually eating lots of toothpaste" and said the amount put on the brush "should be about the size of a pea".

It strikes us that children's toothpaste must now taste much too good, or even addictive, if they are actually eating the stuff, and we fear some of them are also being put to bed hungry, with toothpaste the only way they can fill their empty stomachs.

In vain we sought relief from this horrible thought. Mohammad Sarwar (Lab, Glasgow Central) said recent research suggests that sunbeds may be responsible for up to a hundred deaths a year.

Nor did the horrors end there.

Dawn Primarolo, a junior health minister, revealed that "the illicit trade in cheap tobacco is helping to sustain rising levels of smoking, particularly in deprived communities" and among the young, while Eric Illsley (Lab, Barnsley Central) pointed out that much of the smuggled tobacco "is full of dangerous chemicals" so "young children are getting health problems at an earlier age".

It appears that to protect some of our kids, we need to make toothpaste nastier, and cut the price of good-quality tobacco.